Sale - AK47s - Free Lobotomy with Purchase

John was wondering why he was where he was. After all, he’d purchased the weapon weeks ago.

“And when was it, exactly, that you decided you needed an automatic rifle?” Filling out a form, Marsha, an intake worker, concentrates on her computer screen, making no eye contact with the new admission.

“I don’t know. I saw the ad online. You know. Don’t we all have the right to protect ourselves?”

“Yes. Of course. And how were you planning to use this automatic weapon?” John couldn’t see Marsha’s fingers on the keyboard but he could hear faint clicks as she typed away.

“Well, like I said, I’ve taken it to the range a couple of times. Just to get the feel for it, you know. Ammunition ain’t cheap.” John shifted his butt on the metal chair. He wondered how long this would all take.

“No, it is not. Now, John, I’m sure you didn’t purchase the AK47 just to fire it at the range. Am I right?”

“Certainly not. Not at all. A man needs to protect himself and those close to him. It’s my right. I bought this particular weapon for self-protection.”

“So, John, when you think about your AK, what do you imagine doing with it? Do you visualize real targets when you’re at the range? And did you read the advertisement for what you were buying? ‘Sale - AK47s - Free Lobotomy with Purchase’” This time Marsha looks up from the screen and meets Bob’s eye. “You know what I mean.”

“Sure do. Mostly when I’m firing off rounds I try to concentrate on the targets. But sometimes, you know, I do imagine a whole bunch of fellas running at me with guns, trying to kill me and take my stuff. But I’ve got the AK and I mow them all down. Superior fire power wins every time.” John misses the feel of the AK47 in his arms.

“So, John, you think there are armed, dangerous, people out there who are going to attack you and the best way to deal with the problem is to shoot and kill them?”

“Roger that.”

“And the people you imagine attacking you? Who are they?” Marsha looks at John with all the compassion she can muster.

“Well, sometimes they’re terrorists and sometimes they’re minorities trying to break into my house and sometimes it’s like they’re zombies or carrying some other disease. Citizens need to protect themselves.”

“I understand, John. Is that the reason you carry yourAK47 around town and to the mall and places like that?”

“Absolutely.”

“And like I asked before, did you understand exactly what you were getting with your purchase?” Marsha smiles her sweetest smile.

“Absolutely. I bought one fine combat rifle.”

“And what else, John?”

“Oh, that.” John nods. “I was wondering exactly who was going to get the free lobotomy though.”

Marsha removes her fingers from the keyboard. “John, if you’d accompany me into the next room, I’m sure the doctor will answer all your questions to your complete satisfaction.”

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Another Spiritual Journey

You know, looking back at things, I’m pretty glad I decided not to be a scumbag.


Sure, I know what’s running through your mind. You’re thinking I really wanted to be a scumbag but that I tried and failed. After all, to your way of thinking, everybody wants to be a scumbag but only the cream rises to the top. People who wanted to be scumbags and failed, litter the streets like so many homeless wheeling their shopping carts through neighborhoods where they don’t belong.

I was raised to be a scumbag. Went to scumbag prep school and attended a scumbag liberal arts college. The pressure was great to be a scumbag just like everyone else. Money, available sex partners, fine wine, acceptance, these were just a few of the perks that went along with being a card carrying scumbag.

I even tried being a scumbag for a while. Nice job, desk, air conditioning, sweet paycheck, respect of the community. All I had to do for eight hours a day, five days a week, fifty weeks a year, was see to it that everyone followed the rules and assure scumbags stayed on top of the social pyramid. Easy enough. Too easy if you don’t mind my saying.

Don’t exactly remember when I realized there was only one place the road I was on was leading. I was going to be a scumbag for the rest of my life. Easy street. Nice living and a comfortable retirement. The American dream. My job was to keep my eyes where my bosses and friends wanted me to focus, and pay no attention to what was going on to people who weren’t fortunate enough to be scumbags like me.

Must have been four election cycles back. I surveyed the dozen or so candidates vying for the nominations of their respective parties, and I suddenly realized I had no choice other than to vote for another scumbag just like myself. Rank and privilege and basic scumbaggedness was so entrenched in our society that hardly anyone in the upper echelons even realized they were scumbags anymore.

Only choice anyone had was to elect another scumbag. I was one, I knew exactly what being a scumbag meant. It meant being a morally empty, ethically compromised, upper middle class, and above piece of shit who was willing to sell most of society down the river in order to maintain their own piece of the pie and eat it too. When faced with seeing only scumbags like myself running the country, I knew it was time for me to change teams.

So I quit. I quit being a scumbag. I didn’t begrudge my friends and co-workers who remained scumbags. Most of them had families to support and those who didn’t were looking forward to starting scumbag families of their own. I kissed Scumbagville goodbye and never looked back.

It wasn’t easy going cold turkey. Those jobs where my scumbag skills would have stood me in good stead couldn’t accept someone who’d turned their back on the scumbag tribe. Those people who’d  never been scumbags couldn’t bring themselves to trust someone who they could only assume was still a scumbag.

It was a classic Catch-22 situation. Once a scumbag, always a scumbag. To most people it was beyond their imagination that such a thing as an ex-scumbag could possibly exist.

Over the years things got a little better. I learned to adapt. I accepted scumbags would probably be controlling things until the day I died. I accepted the inevitable. Scumbags ruled.

And then, along came Bernie.

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Tax Their Sinful Ways

We in the United States need a definition of greed. We need to settle on a figure. Just how much is too much? When does accumulating some become hoarding too much? When does a fat cat become an obese cat? 

Who doesn’t like taxing cigarettes and alcohol? They’re easy targets. Everybody knows too much of either is bad for you. Our government takes a serious piece of the action to discourage gluttonous consumption of both smokes and booze and to help defer the health costs their use incurs. It’s generally accepted governments should discourage destructive, sinful behavior either by taxes, fees, or the criminal justice system. We’ve been doing this for generations. But as of late we seem to have turned a blind eye to an ongoing evil. How did greed, one of the seven deadly sins, manage to avoid paying for the damage it has done to society?

Even an occasional smoker or the most moderate of drinkers is forced to pay sin taxes. Even if you limit yourself to a cigarette a month or a martini at Christmas, you pay the same rate as chain smokers and potential DUIs. But the greediest, most avaricious, “I’d rather spit in your face than give you a nickel” billionaire usually pays less proportional taxes than the most frugal citizen on the low end of the income spectrum. With the present tax rates in place, it appears this government actually encourages greed. 

Greed is not good. Greed will forever remain a deadly sin, one of the top seven. When a billionaire boasts about his accumulated wealth, it’s like a glutton rhapsodizing on how he’s eaten non-stop for the past forty years, while addressing an audience that hasn’t had a solid meal in weeks. Somehow the United States, this allegedly Christian nation, has forgotten that obscene accumulation of wealth is remains an abomination unto their Lord. Fortune and Barrons and The Wall Street Journal might as well be kiddie porn in the way they egg on their rapacious readers. The message of this culture promotes ripping off as much as you can from your fellow man. 

Greed needs to be defined. A dollar limit needs be set. If you earn more than this country’s President for an extended period of time, and you keep accumulating more and more, you might be a greedy redneck. If you never worked a day in your life, and you clip coupons purchased by your grandfather while sipping champagne in a Park Avenue penthouse, you probably are an avaricious prepster. If you work for a Fortune 500 company and earn more than 20 times the income of its lowest paid employee, you almost certainly are a greedy sinful scumbag.

Getting back to the sin tax part. How does a society discourage its citizens from engaging in avaricious behavior? When does reasonable accumulation become greed, a deadly sin? It was only a few decades ago that this country decided taxing greed wasn’t necessary. All that “trickle down Economics” rubbish gave rise to a tax rate which presently allows the obscenely rich among us to accumulate unbridled wealth. Following this trend, those citizens not in the top half of one percent of income will soon be left with next to nothing. 

Where do you draw the line? How’s this for a modest proposal, every dollar taken in over one million dollars a year (averaged) should be taxed at a 90% rate. Certainly the vast majority of citizens will agree that if a person believes they need more than a million a year to survive, they’re being a bit greedy. And as we all know, sin taxes are meant to discourage evil behavior.

Greed is hard to recognize at times. Like pornography it might forever remain a judgement call. Greed falls under the “I don’t know exactly but ‘I know it when I see it’ rule”. But pretty much everyone can see grasping for more than a million bucks a year is pretty damn greedy.

It’s long past time to seriously tax the greediest among us. It’s time to help curtail their evil habit. Greed will forever remain a sin. In so many ways. 

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Elect Maggie Thatcher President of the United States

Consider the under represented majorities in the United States, in the world for that matter, and pretty soon you’re going to come across the most ignored majority of them all. Sure, they’ve been getting a lot of broadcast media time these days, but that’s simply a way to placate their aspirations  with shiny objects while the real power remains where it always has been. Having television shows named after them and hiring many as roaming extras is one thing, but what’s been missing is real power. Political power. It’s time to rectify this egregious deliberate oversight. It’s time for a great representative for the unrepresented.

Former Prime Minister of Great Britain, Maggie Thatcher fits the bill. Even dead she remains one of the all time great Corporate Fascist leaders. Nobody ever had more friends in the financial communities. The Clintons don’t even come close. She won office on her own; not following in the footsteps of husband, father, or brother. She remains an icon for the dead, women, and Corporate Fascists all around the world. As the first dead, foreign, woman President of the United States, she will represent the three great under represented majorities, women, foreigners,  and the dead.  Corporate Fascists have occupied the Oval Office for a long time.
 
Let’s face it, everyone votes for their own kind. Men vote for men. Women vote for women. Whites for whites. Blacks for blacks. Latinos for Latinos. Like attracts like. Doesn’t matter how many people they’ve droned or how much Wall Street money was funneled into their charities, when people see a chance to vote for someone like themself, just about everyone takes it.

Obama is a classic example. He mouthed the proper words and looked right, so people voted for him. Nobody checked him out. He turns out to be the best thing the Corporate Fascists could have ever dreamed. Obama charmed and didn’t offend, bingo, he’s elected.

Now’s the chance to really dig up the vote. Listen, we’re all going to be dead one day, so why not elect someone who has our future interests as their own?

Maggie Thatcher as the first dead, woman, Corporate Fascist president covers all the essential bases. Thatcher’s a woman, a Corporate Fascist,  and she’s dead; so she peleases our future selves, international business, the feminists and the misogynists all at the same time. Hillary Clinton only pleases the feminists and the Corporate Fascists, and Jill Stein only the feminists. Who’s the obvious choice?

As far as Maggie not being a United States citizen, no worry there, after all, once we’re dead, everyone becomes a de facto citizen of the world. And that beats all the experience any Secretary of State ever had.

At the very least any dead candidate can be assured of winning the Chicago vote.

Vote for Maggie Thatcher! Who cares how she’s acted, as long as she’s one of us!

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Are You Now, or Have You Ever Been...

Can such a simple and small action as raising taxes on the extremely wealthy be revolutionary? It seems that these days it can be.

Before chucking it all and moving somewhere off the grid where the oligarchs will never find us, there is one question which should be asked of every American politician seeking office this election cycle.

“Are you in favor of increasing taxes on millionaires? Yes or no.”

For decades corporate shills have terrorized American politicians by, among other things, forcing them to sign pledges not to raise taxes.

Everyone hates paying taxes. What else is new? By framing their anti-tax position in such a way as to appear populist, “big government wants to take all the little guy’s money”,  the oligarchs have picked the country’s pockets and weakened all governmental structures. Say what you will about this representative system, it’s a hell of a lot better than rule by corporations abetted by those protecting inherited wealth.

During a period when extremism is rampant, it’s time for a little fine tuning.

“Are you in favor of increasing taxes on millionaires? Yes or No.”

A simple question. For those who reply in the affirmative, fine and dandy, (Yes, all politicians lie at times, but that’s not the point.) For those who say no, or who dance and dodge and trot out the usual bullshit, the line has been drawn. Even the most libertarian, brain dead ideologue knows by now that wealth disparity in this country has reached a critical stage. Not being in favor of taxing millionaires will put that politician on the wrong side of the argument when the votes are cast. Contrary to what corporate media wishes everyone to think, Americans truly do despise everyone who attempts to hog all the money.

Of equal, or possibly more value, this question will shift the topic of conversation from where to cut government, to how tax revenue will be raised to improve this country. Schools, roads, bridges, alternative energy, disaster relief, food; all these essentials cost money to build, maintain, and distribute. It is time for corporations and oligarchs to pay more than their fair share.

To paraphrase words attributed to Willie Sutton, “That’s where the money is.”

“Are you in favor of increasing taxes on millionaires? Yes or No.”

A simple question but it will smoke out those who are on the take in the shortest time possible. If anyone thinks this is playing on class divisions, you can tell them damn straight it is. Now is the time for Americans to take back their country and the money that goes along with it.


Remember: billionaires are millionaires a thousand times over.

Small things must be done in order to survive and fight another day.

When a room is in total darkness, it’s radical to turn on any light.

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The New Health Care Marketplace - "Nice Rash, Buddy"

Published by
Dissident Voice

“Nice rash, buddy.”

Saul believed Wednesday morning would be the best time for his visit to the New Health Care Market.

“Hey, $55 dollars and we’ll have that urticaria off your face in no time at all. Money back guarantee!”

They must think Saul is a real greenhorn. Everybody knows whoever has the first stall near the auditorium’s entrance was sure to be peddling overpriced, shoddy product.

“Don’t listen to him. $40 and we’ll have you all looking like new in half an hour.”

Another one. Saul understood they figured he wasn’t just browsing, but he was beginning to feel like chum surrounded by ravenous sharks.

“Johns Hopkins trained. Not like any of these state university assholes. Johns Hopkins. Where else you going to find a bargain like this? Number one medical establishment. No finer school represented in this entire bazaar.”

Saul kept walking as two belligerent doctors screamed and waved diplomas at one another. Fisticuffs looked likely to ensue, so Saul and his rash just kept on moving through this health care maze.

The New Medical Marketplace came into existence two years previous. The World Court ruled for-profit health care to be both a human rights violation and a possible war crime. The existing medical industry, pharmaceutical companies, medical insurers, as well as for-profit hospitals and doctors, all folded up like the cheap suits they were. Not a single bank was willing to front money to organizations subject to civil and criminal proceedings certain to bankrupt them. Without lines of credit, the for-profit health industry disappeared almost overnight.

Saul had enjoyed observing the ensuing medical/corporate shit storm. Hospitals and private practices which had utilized most of their manpower filling out insurance forms, soon brought their investors to their knees. Insurance companies, their corporate model based on percentages above cost, began focusing on real competitive business rather than seeing how high they could drive medical billing. Used Cadillac and Lexus SUVs soon flooded the market. Saul, since he drove so very little, and the price was even better than right, indulged himself a little and purchased the last ridiculously large gas guzzler he was sure he would ever buy. He only used it short trips around town. For serious driving, he now rented.

For the vast majority of citizens, the demise of the for-profit, insurance driven medical community was a great bonus. Eventually certain corrupt diehard congressman would lose their seats and Medicare for all would become the law of the land. For now, until public funds were available to hire all qualified medical professionals as public servants, these true free market medical farmers’ markets fulfilled a need.

Saul made his way through the crowd, eventually he spotted the booth where Dr. Bob, the Falafel King, peddled his wares. Saul had done his homework. He knew the Falafel King provided good service for an extremely reasonable price.

Dr. Bob remained one of the few medical professionals at the market still employing a nurse. “He does great work. There’s always enough money to share.” In and out of Dr. Bob’s establishment in under forty-five minutes, Saul agreed with the prescribed treatment and the fifty dollars out-of-pocket included a month’s worth of the prescribed drugs. On his way out, the satisfied patient purchased enough falafels for dinner that night. Dr. Bob certainly knew how to keep a business running.

Driving home in his gently used SUV, Saul did feel a moment of compassion for the doctors who these days had to scramble for every nickel. Eventually they would all come around and accept salaries topped off at what was paid to U.S. Senators. Until they learn the lesson of what a real marketplace is, rather than the rigged insurance racket they’d help perpetrate for so many years, these M.D. gurus would have to share mall space with the local farmers. Until they learned their real value to the community, they’d have to sell their services by the side of the road just like everybody else.

Saul pulled into his garage and returned to the warmth of his home, a satisfied medical consumer looking forward to a tasty dinner.

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A Rash of Terror

Reading further internet text, the terrorist becomes ever more convinced in the righteousness of her cause.

“God’s will be done.”

For months she stood firm. Agents of the oppressor surrounded her, wanting to subsume even her youngest child into their heathen world government. Only moments before she tucked blankets underneath his chin as he continued his fever sleep. It was not right only her child should have to live so.

“Even if my child is the last, he shall live free.”

By keeping her infant unregistered, she hopes to avoid the medical experimentation these occupying forces perform on innocent children, often with the compliance of ignorant parents. But this is merely a delaying tactic, the terrorist knew at some point her child would be discovered. They would demand he be delivered to one of their many “health” facilities. He would become another statistic, furthering their obscene medical procedures and research. 

She knew she must do her utmost to avoid this cruel fate from befalling her child. 

Eleven days before, she brought her child to the group.  All the mothers attending were also true believers, even if most were cowards. They would not subject their infants to the oppressor’s whim, but they hadn’t the nerve to strike out against their oppressor. One blessed child was introduced to them all, and the children spent an hour playing together.

It was not until yesterday that her child showed signs he too had been blessed. She immediately took him to his bed. This morning God’s mark, in all its glory, appeared on his skin. This will be the day. 

The terrorist wraps the child in its blanket. Donning a long, dark, hooded coat, she covers herself, hoping to make her appearance as unmemorable as possible. With a scarf she obscures her face. Cameras positioned by the oppressors will certainly be recording their actions when mother and son arrive at the final destination.

She knows her actions will appear cruel to some. But God has selected these children. Some will survive. Some not. God’s eternal and glorious will.

She cradles her son in her arms as they leave the house. She feels his fever heat as they get into the minivan. She buckles him into the car seat. 

Finding a place to sit near the center of the indoor shopping center, the terrorist slowly uncovers her child’s face, allowing the boy to more freely breathe in and out the recirculating air. Soon hundreds of children within the mall’s confines will also be blessed. 

The measles virus is truly God’s will. The Lord be praised.

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